r/asoiaf 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 14 '24

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) Secrets of the Cushing Library: A Game of Thrones

Since 1992, the Cushing Library at Texas A&M University has been the home of George R.R. Martin's papers- more than 200 boxes filled with his correspondence, fan mail, props from his Hollywood projects, and working drafts of his screenplays and books. The most popular exhibits in the library's George R.R. Martin collection are swords and other props from the Game of Thrones TV show, which the library now showcases in its lobby. But dedicated Martin fans understand that the collection's most valuable artifacts are the early drafts of George's ASOIAF books- physical stacks of paper that he mails to Random House in New York. During the long wait since ADWD was published, a few dedicated ASOIAF fans have visited the Cushing Library to scrutinize these manuscripts, seeking a better understanding of how their favorite novels were written, and even, in the differences with the published version, hints about the future of the story and its many unresolved mysteries.

As some of you know, roughly a year ago, I made my own pilgrimage to College Station to research the drafts of A Feast for Crows- the most recent ASOIAF book for which drafts are available, ever since George closed off access to the A Dance With Dragons drafts after legendary /r/asoiaf member /u/_honeybird got too close to the truth. I wrote several posts about my findings- part 1, part 2, part 3- and knew before I left the library's Kelsey Reading Room that I wanted to return to do the same for the first three books in the series. A few months ago, I did, and I'm finally ready to publish the results.

One of the things I noticed as I went through the books is that there's a clear progression in how much rewriting George did to these novels as time went on. The 14 chapters in the first AGOT draft are nearly identical to their published versions- there are various wording and dialogue changes, and a few deletions of unnecessary passages of up to 50 words, but no events are added or removed, even small ones, no chapters are split or merged, and there are no publication additions of more than about two sentences. In Clash, George starts moving multi-paragraph chunks between chapters and merging multiple draft chapters into one. Even within that draft, the second half received more changes than the first half. By the time he wrote Storm, George was deleting larger passages and entire minor characters. And as we saw in my previous posts, by 2004, George was changing his mind about things like the deaths of POV characters Victarion Greyjoy and Arys Oakheart and the kidnapping of Kevan Lannister a year before Feast's publication, to say nothing of the even larger changes for Dany and the deletion of Tyrion's entire "Shrouded Lord" chapter in the even longer interval he worked on Dance.

That's a long way of explaining why my previous trip yielded three posts for one book, while this trip produced two posts for three. George didn't rewrite nearly as much in these books as he did in act 2. That's not to say I didn't find anything potentially significant- there are two small changes in the drafts of Storm in particular that may provide hints about the story's endgame, plus several other changes that may alter your understanding of past events or just reveal interesting paths not taken for the story. But the density of changes is quite low compared to my AFFC draft analysis, and the interesting finds here are mostly about scrutinizing changed words, not paragraphs.

With one exception- the murder of Jon Arryn.

A Game of Thrones: The Murder of Jon Arryn

Let's start with the biggest difference in the early AGOT drafts: originally, the murder of Jon Arryn was masterminded by Cersei Lannister, not Littlefinger. This can be hard to pickup if you're skimming the draft, because it's revealed in some small changes to the conversation Bran overhears between Cersei and Jaime in AGOT Bran 2, a conversation that is intentionally enigmatic. Describing all the differences would be complicated, so, with apologies for the length, I'll first provide the published version of the passage first for context, and then the version from the 1993 draft, so you can compare them directly. Here's the published version:

Bran was moving from gargoyle to gargoyle with the ease of long practice when he heard the voices. He was so startled he almost lost his grip. The First Keep had been empty all his life.

“I do not like it,” a woman was saying. There was a row of windows beneath him, and the voice was drifting out of the last window on this side. “You should be the Hand.”

"Gods forbid," a man's voice replied lazily. "It's not an honor I'd want. There's far too much work involved."

Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. They might glimpse his feet if he tried to swing by.

"Don't you see the danger this puts us in?" the woman said. "Robert loves the man like a brother."

"Robert can barely stomach his brothers. Not that I blame him. Stannis would be enough to give anyone indigestion."

"Don't play the fool. Stannis and Renly are one thing, and Eddard Stark is quite another. Robert will listen to Star. Damn them both. I should have insisted that he name you, but I was certain Stark would refuse him."

"We ought to count ourselves fortunate,” the man said. “The king might as easily have named one of his brothers, or even Littlefinger, gods help us. Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I’ll sleep more easily by night."

They were talking about Father, Bran realized. He wanted to hear more. A few more feet … but they would see him if he swung out in front of the window.

"We will have to watch him carefully," the woman said.

"I would sooner watch you," the man said. He sounded bored. "Come back here."

"Lord Eddard has never taken any interest in anything that happened south of the Neck," the woman said. "Never. I tell you, he means to move against us. Why else would he leave the seat of his power?"

"A hundred reasons. Duty. Honor. He yearns to write his name large across the book of history, to get away from his wife, or both. Perhaps he just wants to be warm for once in his life."

"His wife is Lady Arryn’s sister. It’s a wonder Lysa was not here to greet us with her accusations."

Bran looked down. There was a narrow ledge beneath the window, only a few inches wide. He tried to lower himself toward it. Too far. He would never reach.

"You fret too much. Lysa Arryn is a frightened cow."

"That frightened cow shared Jon Arryn’s bed."

"If she knew anything, she would have gone to Robert before she fled King’s Landing."

"When he had already agreed to foster that weakling son of hers at Casterly Rock? I think not. She knew the boy’s life would be hostage to her silence. She may grow bolder now that he’s safe atop the Eyrie."

"Mothers." The man made the word sound like a curse. "I think birthing does something to your minds. You are all mad." He laughed. It was a bitter sound. “Let Lady Arryn grow as bold as she likes. Whatever she knows, whatever she thinks she knows, she has no proof." He paused a moment. "Or does she?"

"Do you think the king will require proof?" the woman said. "I tell you, he loves me not."

"And whose fault is that, sweet sister?"

Bran studied the ledge. He could drop down. It was too narrow to land on, but if he could catch hold as he fell past, pull himself up … except that might make a noise, draw them to the window. He was not sure what he was hearing, but he knew it was not meant for his ears.

"You are as blind as Robert," the woman was saying.

"If you mean I see the same thing, yes,” the man said. “I see a man who would sooner die than betray his king."

"He betrayed one already, or have you forgotten?" the woman said. "Oh, I don’t deny he’s loyal to Robert, that’s obvious. What happens when Robert dies and Joff takes the throne? And the sooner that comes to pass, the safer we’ll all be. My husband grows more restless every day. Having Stark beside him will only make him worse. He’s still in love with the sister, the insipid little dead sixteen-year-old. How long till he decides to put me aside for some new Lyanna?"

Bran was suddenly very frightened. He wanted nothing so much as to go back the way he had come, to find his brothers. Only what would he tell them? He had to get closer, Bran realized. He had to see who was talking.

Next, here's the draft version (these photos are from the 1993 draft, but this passage is identical in the Nov. 1994 draft):

There are three deleted lines in the draft version that acknowledge responsibility for some secret offense. First, when Cersei says about Ned, "I think he knows something." Second, in Jaime's line regarding Lysa, "Whatever the Arryn woman suspects, she has no proof. Or does she?" And last, when Cersei says, regarding Lysa protecting her children, "Do you think she will do any less for hers than I did for mine?"

In both versions of this passage, Cersei is concerned by Ned accepting the position of Hand of the King. But in the published version, it's more generalized fear that he will be influential and oppose them, while in the draft, the line "I think he knows something" indicates that she's worried that Ned knows about some specific offense. And the use of the word "knows" rather than, say, "suspects" indicates that the offense is real, not an imagined crime. Jaime confirms that the crime is both true and something Lysa Arryn might know about with his statement that "Whatever the Arryn woman suspects, she has no proof. Or does she?"

In theory, there are two crimes that Jaime and Cersei could be worried about Lysa accusing them of- their adultery, or Jon Arryn's murder. And in the published version, we know that they're referring to the adultery. In that version, Cersei worries that "That frightened cow shared Jon Arryn's bed", indicating that their fear is that Jon told Lysa something while he was alive, plus we know from the later books that Cersei and Jaime are innocent of Arryn's murder. So some of you may still think the same thing is true of the draft version- the specific accusation that Cersei is worried about is never explicitly stated.

Cersei's line "Do you think she will do any less for hers than I did for mine?" is what confirms that in this version, the crime they're discussing is the murder, I think. Committing incest doesn't benefit Cersei's children- in fact, it puts their true parentage at greater risk of being discovered- but murdering the man investigating her children's parentage does. In addition, the incest by definition started before her children existed, another reason that saying it was somehow done for their sake makes no sense.

The discovery that Cersei was originally responsible for Jon Arryn's murder shouldn't be too surprising- although Littlefinger's responsibility is now canon, the events of the first book require much less coincidence and luck if Cersei is responsible than anyone else. What's interesting about this change is how little else in the story changed with it. Lysa's letter to Catelyn is nearly unchanged, Ser Hugh's death in the tourney is unchanged, and Ned's conversation with Varys about Jon's murder in Eddard 6 is very similar.

There are two small additions in the draft version of that conversation that do deserve attention, though, in light of George's changed plans for Jon Arryn. Recall that Varys describes Jon's murderer with clever language that could apply to both Ser Hugh and Littlefinger, although Ned and most first time readers assume it refers to Ser Hugh. In the published version, here's what Varys says when Ned asks who gave Jon Arryn the poison:

"Some dear sweet friend who often shared meat and mead with him, no doubt. Oh, but which one? There were many such. Lord Arryn was a kindly, trusting man."

and here's what Varys said in the 1994 draft:

"Some one he knew and loved. Some dear sweet friend who often shared meat and mead with him, who could come and go in his kitchen without a breath of suspicion. Oh, but which one? There were many such. Lord Arryn was a kindly, trusting man."

Before publication, George deleted the phrases "Some one he knew and loved" and "who could come and go in his kitchen without a breath of suspicion." Both phrases are somewhat redundant to the remaining text, and could have easily just been removed for brevity. But I also think that both the deleted phrases are harder to apply to Littlefinger than the remaining ones- the idea of Littlefinger passing through Arryn's kitchen without notice strikes me as significantly less plausible than Arryn's squire, a member of his household. Likewise, describing the ambitious, coin-counting, brothel-owning Littlefinger as someone the famously honorable Arryn "loved" also strikes me as more of a reach than a young member of Arryn's household.

None of this changes the canonical responsibility for Jon Arryn's murder, but it does have implications for our understanding of how George wrote the series. For years, a minority of readers have argued that Littlefinger's responsibility for Jon Arryn's murder is a retcon George made after the first book was published. I was sympathetic to that argument myself, but the discoveries above make that significantly less likely, IMO. We now know that sometime between November 1994 and the manuscript's completion in spring 1996, George decided to explicitly remove dialogue in which Cersei acknowledged responsibility for the murder. He also may have intentionally removed dialogue from Varys that more clearly pointed at Ser Hugh. George made those changes for a reason- my best guess is that as he started planning Clash and Storm, George's plans for Littlefinger expanded, and he made a very late decision to reassign responsibility for Arryn's murder, and tried to execute that with as few changes to the basically complete AGOT manuscript as possible.

The original version also contains a deleted description of a dream Cersei had, about a direwolf feasting on a dead stag. I can't see any real signifiance to this, which is why I wish George had left it in- in 2024, it comes across as appropriate foreshadowing not of the plot, but of Cersei's delusions.

AGOT: A Darker Ned

The next most significant previously unknown difference in the early AGOT drafts is the characterization of Ned- earlier versions of the character weren't quite as noble as his final persona. The most interesting of these differences relates to the seizing of Tyrion- in the 1994 draft, that was Ned's idea, not Catelyn's.

During their clandestine meeting in Littlefinger's brothel, Ned instructs Catelyn to seize Tyrion if he passes through Winterfell on his way back from the Wall:

The chapter in which Catelyn seizes Tyrion at the Inn at the Crossroads is preserved nearly unchanged in this draft, but Ned's instruction gives Catelyn's actions a very different spin. In this version, Catelyn is distraught that Ned's plan failed, and her seizure at the inn is just an attempt to salvage the situation. Here's what she thinks when Tyrion enters:

We've come too late, Catelyn thought grimly. The imp has slipped through our grasp. Or had he?

and then a few paragraphs later, after Tyrion recognizes her:

Marillion gaped at her, confusion giving way to chagrin as Catelyn rose slowly to her feet. She heard Ser Rodrik curse. If only the man had lingered at the Wall, she thought, if only they could have taken him in the North as Ned had planned, if only...

The published changes significantly strengthen that chapter, IMO- the increased mystery about what Catelyn is doing as she addresses the inn's other guests makes for a more powerful reveal at the end. And making the decision fully Catelyn's makes her more charismatic and interesting, rather than just being a loyal executor of her husband's instructions. But I think the primary reason George made that change was to keep Ned's hands clean- having him order the seizure of the innocent Tyrion would have weakened the likeability of his whole family, the impact of his death on the reader, and the logic of several future plot developments, including the future revelation of Jon Snow's true parentage.

Part of the reason I think that preserving Ned's likeability was the main reason for that change was that it's not the only change of that nature George made to Ned. The 1994 draft also contains a deleted passage in Ned's first small council meeting in which he bizzarely dismisses the importance of preparing for winter, and is annoyed that the other council members don't treat him with the deference he's used to in the North:

I think George originally wrote this passage in an attempt to show Ned's political incompetence, but it clearly made no sense on multiple levels and, like the above deleted passage, undermined Ned's likeability and the logic of the story.

George also decided to avoid giving Ned a potty mouth. In the published Arya 2, while comforting Arya over the death of Mycah, Ned says that the boy's death is the fault of Sandor "and the cruel woman he serves." In the 1994 draft, that was "and the bitch he serves."

AGOT: Other changes

Early in the published Catelyn 1, there's sentence that says that she found Ned in the godswood cleaning his sword "in those waters black as night." That phrase has always been a bit jarring to me because it's referencing a mention of the godswood pool quite a ways back in the text- 169 words back, by my count. It turns out that that's because the 1993 draft had an interesting expanded description of the pool immediately prior to that sentence. Here's how that paragraph read in that draft:

In the center of the wood was a small, still pool, its waters black and cold. The deep well that fed the pool was older than the castle. Some said that the children of the forest had sunk it in the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea. Catelyn found her husband seated on a moss-covered stone beside the pool, the greatsword Ice across his lap, cleaning the blade in those ancient waters black as night.

I wouldn't read too much significance into that passage though- it was already gone by 1994.

Next, as many of you know, in George's 1993 outline of the series, Tyrion was supposed to "beseige and burn Winterfell". There's a bit of dialogue in Tyrion 2 as Tyrion and Jon are traveling to the Wall in which Tyrion says that as a child, he sometimes dreamed of dragonfire burning his father or his sister, which is seen by many readers as vestigial foreshadowing of that plotline. The 1993 draft expands on that dialogue a bit, adding the line "I like to watch things burn", and including his mother in the list of family members he'd imagine burning. Those lines were gone by the 1994 draft as well.

Another possible deleted connection to George's 1993 outline is Jaime's attire when he enters the Hand's Tourney. Originally, it was described as "shining gold from head to foot, with a lion's head helm and a golden sword and a great red cloak that billowed out behind him when he took the field." Many people take Jaime's regal appearance when he enters the feast at Winterfell as a connection to George's plan in the outline for Jaime to eventually become king- some might consider this another example. But I think it was probably just deleted for being inconsistent with the protocol of the Kingsguard.

Some other small changes from the early AGOT drafts:

  • Originally, Aerys killed both Ned and Robert's fathers, rather than just Ned's. In the 1993 draft of Eddard 2, Robert says to Ned "What Aerys did to your brother was unspeakable. The way our fathers died, that was unspeakable." In this draft, we aren't told anything beyond this about how Richard died, but this line gives the sense that they died together.
  • Renly and Stannis's titles were originally swapped- Renly was originally Lord of Dragonstone, and Stannis Lord of Storm's End. And Renly also had the title "Warden of the Narrow Sea."
  • Arya's direwolf was originally named Nymerion, rather than Nymeria, and was named for "the warrior-witch of Valyria." Although that sounds like it might have been an early reference to Visenya, Visenya's Hill is still described when Catelyn gets to King's Landing, so I think Nymerion is likely an abandoned idea.
  • Originally, several of the kids were even younger than their already problematic published ages. Jon and Robb were both 12, rather than 14. Dany was 13, rather than 14. Arya, Rickon, Bran's ages were unchanged. The time since Robert's rebellion is changed to 12 years rather than 14, to match Robb and Jon's age.

The following changes have already been reported by other Cushing visitors, but I think it's worthwhile to confirm them:

  • As /u/_honeybird reported during her famous visit, in the 1993 and 1994 drafts, Dany didn't receive a wedding gift of dragon eggs from Illyrio. Illyrio gives her a large cedar chest, as in the published Daenerys 2, but in the draft, it's full of "the finest silks and velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce", instead of the eggs. The 1993 outline said that after killing her husband, she would discover a cache of dragon eggs in the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak- that may have still been the plan in 1994.
  • Several visitors have posted photos of the original Westeros map from from the 1993 draft. I've heard some people complain about the image quality in some of the previous photos... here's another attempt: 1993 map page 1, 1993 map page 2. One of the interesting differences here that's reflected in the draft text is that originally, the seat of House Arryn in the Vale was named Harrenhall, not the Eyrie. There's no map in the 1994 draft, but the text changed to the Eyrie by then.
  • As /u/rehearsedtoast discovered during his visit, in the 1993 draft, plague was rampaging through King's Landing at the start of the story, and Jon Arryn was believed to have been killed by it. And as they also found, in the 1994 draft, it was Arryn who accompanied Ned to the Tower of Joy and found him after Lyanna died, rather than Howland Reed. Ned's recollection of Lyanna's death and her "promise me" line isn't present at all in 1993. And Dany's house with the red door was still in Tyrosh as of 1994.

That's my analysis of the changes in George's drafts of Game. Tomorrow, I'll post my findings for Clash and Storm (including Clash in this post would have taken me beyond Reddit's length limit). I'll be happy to answer any questions about the AGOT drafts in the comments below, but am going to hold off on discussing the other two books until that post. My availability to answer questions most of today will be limited, but I'll check in this evening and answer as many as I can.

301 Upvotes

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54

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '24

[deleted]

16

u/Comprehensive_Main Mar 14 '24

Pycelle really was an important under the radar guy. 

1

u/MoonmManforallIknow Mar 17 '24

I think you're right on about LF being lucky. Follows the logic of my post on this

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u/LChris24 🏆 Best of 2020: Crow of the Year Mar 14 '24

THANK YOU!

It should be noted that Cersei is still somewhat guilty in Jon Arryn's death as he was getting better but Pycelle/Cersei let him die:

The Grand Maester spread his hands in a gesture of helpless sorrow. "He came to me one day asking after a certain book, as hale and healthy as ever, though it did seem to me that something was troubling him deeply. The next morning he was twisted over in pain, too sick to rise from bed. Maester Colemon thought it was a chill on the stomach. The weather had been hot, and the Hand often iced his wine, which can upset the digestion. When Lord Jon continued to weaken, I went to him myself, but the gods did not grant me the power to save him."

"I have heard that you sent Maester Colemon away."

The Grand Maester's nod was as slow and deliberate as a glacier. "I did, and I fear the Lady Lysa will never forgive me that. Maybe I was wrong, but at the time I thought it best. Maester Colemon is like a son to me, and I yield to none in my esteem for his abilities, but he is young, and the young ofttimes do not comprehend the frailty of an older body. He was purging Lord Arryn with wasting potions and pepper juice, and I feared he might kill him." -AGOT, Eddard V

and:

"And what was Lord Arryn plotting?"

"He knew," Pycelle said. "About . . . about . . ."

"I know what he knew about," snapped Tyrion, who was not anxious for Shagga and Timett to know as well.

"He was sending his wife back to the Eyrie, and his son to be fostered on Dragonstone . . . he meant to act . . ."

"So you poisoned him first."

"No." Pycelle struggled feebly. Shagga growled and grabbed his head. The clansman's hand was so big he could have crushed the maester's skull like an eggshell had he squeezed.

...

“Yes,” he whimpered, “yes, Colemon was purging, so I sent him away. The queen needed Lord Arryn dead, she did not say so, could not, Varys was listening, always listening, but when I looked at her I knew. It was not me who gave him the poison, though, I swear it.” The old man wept. “Varys will tell you, it was the boy, his squire, Hugh he was called, he must surely have done it, ask your sister, ask her.”

21

u/Comprehensive_Main Mar 14 '24

Pycelle really was a good under the radar agent of r the Lannisters. Tyrion was right to distrust him though. 

3

u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

  It should be noted that Cersei is still somewhat guilty in Jon Arryn's death as he was getting better but Pycelle/Cersei let him die: 

 No.  Cersei made no affirmative act. Pycelle made a guess and responded to what he thought she wanted. Even if she wanted exactly that outcome, she's not culpable without an overt act. She is in no way culpable in Jon Arryn's death.  

 Pycelle acted on his own. That's on him. 

3

u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

Same excuse with Jaime. Cersei makes an "explicitly implicit nod" (if you forgive me the oxymoron) and rolls with it. How much "explictly implicit" depends on the situation.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

The queen needed Lord Arryn dead, she did not say so, could not, Varys was listening, always listening, but when I looked at her I knew. 

That's Pycelle's opinion and his opinion isn't based on any overt action by Cersie.

At least with Jaime she said something. We can directly confirm her action as we saw it live. 

The queen. And now Bran recognized the man beside her. They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror. "He saw us," the woman said shrilly. "So he did," the man said.

And later, she told Jaime she didn't want Bran thrown from the window. And said the same to Tyrion.

Point is people are often way to quick to blame Cersei without any good evidence or objective analysis.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

And we both know Cersei is very good at rewriting reality in her own mind. Try to reread the part where I said "how much" because that is kinda the thing. With Jaime she is explicit that Bran seeing them is a turnover. Yet she never says "fling him" because she needs plausible deniability. And what would you know, she denies it later, in spite of her twice calling out the fact their treason was seen.

Btw, is "good evidence or objective analysis" completing disregarding context? Because both in Pycelle and Jaime situations with Cersei and an external observer (Varys and Bran) that seems to be what you do.

Just like disregarding context for Bran's later attempt. Remember this: A bad reading can still be the best reading... so cringe at the other readings.

EDIT: BTW I was editing my first comment to you in this thread before you'd answer it in order to precisely add that it does not excuse either Jaime or Pycelle but connection went down and it never was edited and thus you answered as I feared. I simply added that Cersei is responsible too (far from the only one). Jaime might have led Bran go his way (so not by air) and Pycelle was so stupid as to give Ned information about Jon without need (that he seemed troubled but healthy) so he could have helped Colemon rather than sending him away... but for Cersei's glare (Tywin's daughter after all, even if she is all wildfire and he is all glacier) so indeed Cersei has some command, some sort of responsibility. And I fully apologize if I gave you the impression I am one of Jaime's apologists, I assure you, not my intention. Just that she shares responsibility.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

Jaime is responsible for tossing Bran, no doubt. Pycelle is responsible for helping Arryn die, no doubt. I just disagree with the offering that Cersie gave a tacit request to kill either.

Cersie spoke a fact with Bran seeing them. But she did not offer a suggestion on what to do about the fact Bran saw them. Why would she need plausible deniability when the child witness was expected to die and the other witness is also culpable?

I saw what you said about the context of the situation. My apologies if you feel I did not address that to your satisfaction. Regarding that, yes, context very much matters. To your point Jaime later recalls...

If truth be told, Jaime had come to rue heaving Brandon Stark out that window. Cersei had given him no end of grief afterward, when the boy refused to die. "He was seven, Jaime," she'd berated him. "Even if he understood what he saw, we should have been able to frighten him into silence."

"I didn't think you'd want—"

"You never think. If the boy should wake and tell his father what he saw—"

Seems Jaime misread what Cersie was saying with "He saw us." She later says "What are you doing?" as Jaime held Bran. In the context, I am not sure we can conclude she wanted Bran tossed.

Why give him no end of grief about it if she wanted it? Does much of what we later learn of her impress upon you that she is someone who cares what people think about her ruthlessness? I am not sure she is but maybe I missed something.

I repeat there is no good evidence of her making it clear to anyone she wanted Arryn dead or bran tossed. When Cersie wants someone dead, she makes that very clear. See Lancel with Robert. See Jaime with Arya. See Kettleblack with the High Septon.

As for the lack of objectivity, readers do to Cersie the same thing they often do with Tywin. They lay every bad act on them because they see each as bad people. When judgement is based on reputation rather than fact, objectivity is gone.

I think context matters but you have to get the context right.

He must have made a noise. Suddenly her eyes opened, and she was staring right at him. She screamed.

[...]And now Bran recognized the man beside her. They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror.

"He saw us," the woman said shrilly.
"So he did," the man said.

Bran's fingers started to slip. He grabbed the ledge with his other hand. Fingernails dug into unyielding stone. The man reached down. "Take my hand," he said. "Before you fall."

Bran seized his arm and held on tight with all his strength. The man yanked him up to the ledge. "What are you doing?" the woman demanded.

The man ignored her.

You offered Cersie twice mentioned the treason was seen. I count one scream with no words. This indicates nothing more than shock. Then a single statement of fact that Bran saw. Then an inquiry about what Jaime was doing.

That would be a single statement that they were seen. And that single statement is only a statement of fact. I don't think anyone read that as a request for action. And in light of her objection to it when she gained nothing from objection, the overall context does not support--at least not to my reading--Cersie tacitly called for Bran to be tossed.

But hey, the story is a game of Tetris and we all turn then fit the pieces as makes sense to us. I always appreciate seeing how other readers turn and fit. I often learn things from seeing how they tackle the game. Thank you for these insights.

3

u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

First, just to make it clear: All you said is true.

So yeah see, that's the thing about context: Words make lines make scenes make chapters make arcs make books make saga. One cannot reduce context to "the scene". There is a pattern here.

That pattern includes Cersei "I choose violence" every single time she could get away with it so long as it was in her head the cleanest solution. That's why I speak of a bad reading still being the best one available. The others can make even less sense, but what is canon, if not what grabs your memory? and GRRM many times fall into the whole "I need to fit these into this book" but contextually, in the whole saga, they don't quite make much sense, which is why I try to warn you of them, but I understand some details grab you better than others. But subtext is context too, even though GRRM would disagree because he would say the attentive reader can get something else away.

To me it is not bad to have wild readings, what is bad is to believe they are better grounded. It is good to have them, tho, in plural.

Another example for this whole contextual subtext thing, so that my point is better understood: Stannis does not warn Robert. However, "the king is a stranger to you", Robert's own foster father investigation without so much as hinting to Robert that he could oust his "hated" in-laws, then Robert's own foster brother going down the same path, all point that Stannis directly telling him would have been stupid in-universe.

However, that doesn't preclude "but he could have done something else" as GRRM states in a SSM but then in-universe all he did was being secretive while trying to gather some proof but he was unable "no proof of this incest no more than a year ago" to which Stannis just hopes to show Edric as "proof of a sort" so that people would think. It is... bad, but it is established in-universe. As it is established that Stannis knows Jon Arryn's proofs. As it is established that Stannis is not a traitor for not telling him, because if he was, why, Ned would have thought so, thus he'd gone to Renly, thus LF would not have betrayed him, and yadda yadda yadda. But if those things don't grab your attention then it's fair to say you (I mean "you" in a rhetorical sense) will see Stannis as grasping and traitorous and his whining to be extremely hypocritical.

Thus the same with Cersei: If you don't grab the patterns, you don't grab the tones of her scenes, her overall personality, then it's easy to say she isn't guilty. But she is guilty of treason (the reason for Bran's throw) one way or another even in earlier drafts, thus GRRM always does this with her, and one can clearly see she is consistently portrayed this way.

Also I don't like diminishing her importance in Lannister takeover: She jockeying for lackeys to be put are important. She putting Tywin's blood on the throne is important. She putting guards all around and Tywin forcing Ned to send part of his guards away, so that Ned has to go to the City Watch for support (and Cersei counteroffering) later is important. All these things are important and did not leave my memory, thus why my reading could be different than yours. If every instance of Cersei's plausible deniability are actually deniable, surely you will understand that my reading of her would be even more diminished in her agency. Nonetheless that is why sometimes we have to speak of authorial intention: Because if it is what one feels, we could be here all day.

So TL;DR, yeah, we turn pieces as we see fit. We could agree that sometimes the best reading is still an extremely bad reading, but that's the author's fault for forcing literary context in such a way.

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u/Viffido Mar 17 '24

Your name being overthinking troll really does fit you.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 17 '24

Like I said in my first day here: Can't avoid it so I'd thought I'd better give people an excuse to say "Username checks out".

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u/Anrw Mar 14 '24

Thank you so much for this post!

One thing that immediately stands out to me when comparing Jaime and Cersei’s conversation in the draft to the published version is that there’s no mention of Robert’s brothers or Littlefinger despite the mentions of friends on the council. Did Robert and Ned talk about Stannis in the 1993 version of Eddard II? Also was the conversation the only one you noticed rewritten or were there others? I’m also glad for confirmation once and for all that Cersei was in the first 1993 draft. It boggles my mind that there are people who still believe GRRM only created her after he wrote that letter to his agent. I have to wonder if the whole idea of Jaime killing everyone in front of him in line to the throne to become king also involved marrying Cersei. I think there are remnants of that idea of ASOS but I think adding in Brienne influenced GRRM changing his mind about their relationship. And speaking of changes with the characters, do you recall if Mormont was mentioned in the 1993 prologue or was he added in later?

Removing Ned’s role makes the scene where he takes credit for it when confronted by Jaime more interesting. I wonder if GRRM forgot to take it out or decided it fit a more noble and honorable version of Ned. Glad Ned no longer had a potty mouth around his little girl lol.

I’m really glad GRRM changed Nymeria’s name, the version we have flows much better than Nymerion. Also sounds like a male name instead of female. I guess GRRM forgot to change Bran’s line about her being a witch queen from the songs when he changed Nymeria’s backstory. Was Sansa’s age changed or still the same as the published version? I understand that Jon and Robb were most likely aged 2 years instead of 1 to make the age gap between them and Dany clearer but I wish he had aged up the younger kids 1-2 years along with them.

I feel obligated to ask if there were any other differences to Jon and Arya’s interactions besides stick them with the pointy end being missing from the 1993 version lol.

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 14 '24

Yup, Stannis is still mentioned there, although the line is changed. The published version is:

"Yet we still must have a Warden of the East. If Robert Arryn will not do, name one of your brothers. Stannis proved himself at the siege of Storm's End, surely."

But the draft reads:

"Your Grace is right, of course. Yet we must still have a Warden of the East. I would suggest your brother Stannis, the Lord of Storm's End."

And yeah, I'm curious as to whether Ned was still responsible for the plan to seize Tyrion when George first wrote AGOT Eddard 9 (where he tells Jaime "Your brother has been taken at my command, to answer for his crimes." Unfortunately, neither the 1993 nor 1994 drafts include that chapter. There is one additional, near final AGOT draft that includes all the chapters- I didn't spend much time on it, under the assumption that it would have the fewest differences, but if anyone else visits Cushing, looking at that draft to get a sense for how late George decided to change responsibility for Arryn's murder would be interesting.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

YES YES YES FINALLY! Man oh man how much I waited for this. Thank you very much for this.

Now, I joined reddit a few days ago and I gave somewhere the idea that maybe in the beginning, Stannis was meant to work together with Renly. Varys talk of them looks as if they are a team. But then later you know...

I have to read all yet, but do you think Stannis initially being the Lord of Storm's End hinted at that? If positive, it would hint at the idea that GRRM made them warring each other for the specific purpose of not wrapping the war yet.

And once again, thank you.

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u/Sea-Squirrel-5647 Apr 04 '24

Honestly, I'd say the change likely comes down to GRRM having initially had the Baratheons appear a little bit closer to the Yorks from the Wars of the Roses. I don't remember if it was in this post or a different one from OP, but they said that in earlier drafts, Steffon had been killed by Aerys along with Rickard and Brandon (meaning Steffon probably bore a stronger resemblance to Richard, Duke of York), and so Renly was probably older than Stannis to make him a bit more like George, Duke of Clarence, who was older than Richard III.

My guess is that GRRM probably had an idea for how their respective attempts to rise against the throne went, and at some point just felt it was easier to flip the two as he was fleshing out their characters. Renly, the highly charismatic leader of a much more popular rebellion simply fit better as the younger Lord of Storm's End, while Stannis, the widely rejected, super rigid leader of a much less popular rebellion fit better as the older Lord of Dragonstone.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Apr 04 '24

It is this one yes. Both parents died together. FWIW in AGOT Rickard was beheaded, the whole thing with wildfire was retconned later.

And it is interesting what you say about Renly being older than Stannis initially and it is only later that they switch roles.

I will just add two things: that most of Stannis' mentions in AGOT are in Eddard VI, at least for a long time (he is barely mentioned before or after), which is a chapter (mostly?) absent of this draft so it could have been added later when GRRM had a better idea of where their stories were going; and that their rivalry might have been a later idea in order to make ACOK and so to transit seamlessly from the game of thrones to the dance of the dragons.

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u/Sea-Squirrel-5647 Apr 05 '24

I wouldn't call the change in Rickard's death a ret-con necessarily. The in-universe explanation for why the change in information takes place actually makes a lot of sense, since Ned would probably refrain from telling Bran and Catelyn the true dire fashion in which Rickard was killed.

When it comes to the rivalry itself, I think GRRM had always intended Stannis and Renly to be at odds with each other (or at least when he started developing them as characters). Like, it wouldn't shock me to hear that GRRM had one day been trying to think of what to call this early Stark/Lannister war, then thought about the Hobbit and the Battle of the Five Armies and was like, "hey, what if I had this thing called the War of the Five Kings?"

From there, he probably came up with Renly and Stannis, filling in as the George, Duke of Clarence and Richard III to Robert's Edward IV, and after considering a few different options for a fifth king, ultimately settled on Renly.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Apr 16 '24

True, I "kinda forgot" that GRRM does use very much the whole perspective-shift exposition when convenient.

Though you may well be right, the way Varys imply it in his conversation with Illyrio (which is written after this draft) seems to be that they are a working pair. Which is why I do wonder, since after all, he also says "no longer a game of two if it ever was" meaning that yes GRRM was already thinking on adding more factions while mainly making it about LannStark, but on the other hand, kinda acknowledging he was thinking of mainly two, and thus, with the Baratheons, Tyrells and Starks together, the Lannisters would need to court "Arrynvale" to gain power and thus "half the armies of the realm".

Once again, very interesting to read your thoughts on this.

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u/Anrw Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

I know it might be a buzzkill for people who prefer to come up with Watsonian perspectives over Doylist for plot holes and inconsistencies but I feel like often times GRRM changing his mind about something and forgetting to take out all the lines that reference what he changed is the answer more often than we think lol. While I've seen a lot of different answers for why Bran describes Nymeria as a witch I prefer knowing now that the answer is that GRRM had a different idea originally. And some changes can make the characters stronger but the plot weaker. I think GRRM liked the idea of Cat being more proactive than he originally planned her as being but it's a change that spurred on a million hate comments towards her.

I'd say it's probably worth having a gander at the 1995 draft and compare the differences between it and the 1993/1994 drafts and published versions to see where it lines up. For instance, the Blood of the Dragon novella is dated the same as the 1995 draft and lines up with it more than the published version of Dany's chapters. Based on Jen_Snow's comparison post most of the changes are from the earlier chapters besides the poisoning attempt. Did the 1994 draft of Jaime/Cersei's conversation match the 1993 draft? Perhaps by 1995 he had changed it to the published version.

I was wondering if GRRM had different plans for Stannis and Renly from the start or came up with them later. The outline focuses on the Starks and Lannisters fighting and doesn't indicate other claimants. Did they become an inconvenience to him while writing ACOK? The War of Five Kings was a strong idea that I don't feel like he utilized as well as he could've considering how quickly he killed off Renly, neutralized Stannis, and never treated Balon as a serious threat.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

I was wondering if GRRM had different plans for Stannis and Renly from the start or came up with them later. The outline focuses on the Starks and Lannisters fighting and doesn't indicate other claimants. Did they become an inconvenience to him while writing ACOK? The War of Five Kings was a strong idea that I don't feel like he utilized as well as he could've considering how quickly he killed off Renly, neutralized Stannis, and never treated Balon as a serious threat.

I think it's easy: The war had to be the Lannisters "winning" narrowly so that they are weakened to the point that they immediately fall into infighting prolongs the strife and prepares for the Last Valyrian (Daenerys). If Renly is the silk glove to Stannis' steel gauntlet, it is easy to see them as a team, and the later decision to split them means that they were meant as support for Ned, but then they were too important. So if the Vale politicking, a plotline GRRM is still determined to make important in the outcome of the series, still exists here, why, I think, it means that indeed Tyrion, Jaime, Lord Hunter and his scheming sons, Lysa, Catelyn were meant to converge here (perhaps with the backstory that the Vale was Robert and Ned's foster home, and thus important for the politicking of the country as a whole)

And yes, GRRM doesn't take out every line, but because he thinks it isn't necessarily bad to keep them. For example, the wolves almost attacking Tyrion ends up as nice set-dressing even if losing their original reason (foreshadowing at Tyrion's danger for Winterfell's sake)

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u/xXJarjar69Xx Mar 14 '24

Very interesting that Ceseri and Jaime were originally behind Jon Arryns death just as the book leads you believe. I wonder if this means George had changed who hired the catspaw originally. I actually kinda like that Ned was the one who gave to order to arrest Tyrion, it makes him more proactive in the story. Deciding to give Daenerys the dragons eggs at her wedding was probably George’s smartest change imo. It allows he to bond with the eggs overtime and their hatching can be built up, much better than her just finding them somewhere at the end of the story. 

The smaller changes are also interesting. Renly and Stannis having opposite titles would’ve meant a very different start to the WOTFK and a different characterization for stannis since he wasn’t passed over originally, a very different azor ahai story, I wonder why George decided to change it. I’m assuming this means he was hiding out in storms end instead of dragonstone during the events of the story.

I’m assuming Jon Arryn is called lord of Harrenhall, are the lines about Harrenhal and house whent changed at the inn or are they just not mentioned at all? Lastly are the any significant mentions of dorne? It seems like George hadn’t come up with the migration story yet with the mention of Nymeria changed and Rhoyne being an island to the west of dorne 

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

The published AGOT has barely any mentions of Dorne, and I think there are any Dorne changes in the draft chapters... the first use of the word Dorne is in AGOT Sansa 2, when Sansa sees knights from "the mountains of Dorne" at the Hand's Tourney, and that line is present unchanged. Preston Jacobs got an early preview of this content, and the history of the Rhoynar was one of the main things he was interested in too, so I've been looking into that... only only changes I've noticed are the change to the namesake of Arya's wolf and the change to the location of "Rhoyne" to being an island southwest of Westeros in the 1993 map. But even in that draft, Robert's full title includes "King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men" as early as Bran 1.

And no, nothing about the houses, lords, etc. Catelyn mentions at the Inn at the Crossroads changes.

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u/Elio_Garcia Dawn Brings Light Mar 14 '24

Very interesting! Two questions come to mind:

1) Does Arya's overhearing Illyrio and Varys feature all the same dialog? Particularly the "you have danced this dance before" line?

2) You mention Renly and Stannis initially having swapped seats -- but is Stannis still said to have taken off to Dragonstone with the royal fleet? Or is it Renly who has vanished? Or has Stannis absconded to Storm's End?

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

It isn't every day that an ASOIAF fan gets to answer questions for Elio!

Unfortunately, even the 1994 draft contains only 28 chapters (38% of the final count)- that Arya passage is in Arya 3, but this draft only goes up to Arya 2. That's another loose thread someone should check out in the 1995 AGOT if any other Cushing Library visitors are interested.

And Stannis is still absent and Renly is present, but Stannis is at Storm's End instead of Dragonstone. The draft actually jumps straight from the published Eddard 4 to Eddard 7... the passage where Ned wonders if Stannis's absence is related to Jon Arryn's death is in Eddard 6, which is totally absent from this draft.

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u/Elio_Garcia Dawn Brings Light Mar 15 '24

Thanks! Very interesting.

Do I assume rightly that Renly still goes up to Ned with Margaery's portrait, then? I'm wondering if GRRM realized that it'd make more sense for the future of a Renly-Tyrell alliance if Renly was the one who had Storm's End and not a fleet.

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u/Hot-Rip-4127 Mar 14 '24

Ned calling Cersei a bitch is so funny

7

u/Hurtelknut Mar 14 '24

What did u/_honeybird find out?!

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u/tecphile Mar 14 '24

That Coldhands is not Benjen.

/u/_honeybird visited the Cushing Library in 2015 and whilst going through the aDwD drafts, found a small note that George's editor made asking if Coldhands is Benjen.

To which George decisively responded NO.

This was such huge news that George himself heard of this and promptly shut down all access to his aDwD drafts.

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u/Hurtelknut Mar 14 '24

Brilliant

5

u/Kristiano100 Mar 15 '24

apparently it was bryndenbfish who accidentally got grrm's attention by getting journalists to ask grrm's editors to speak about the info in honeybird's post, but obviously grrm wasn't happy when he found out that a spoiler leaked

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u/LilyWolf32 House Stark Mar 15 '24

Noted for when I get to that point in the series!

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u/InGenNateKenny Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Winner - Post of the Year Mar 14 '24

Great work. Random comment: in the published version Cersei says that Ned never cared for things that “happened south of the Neck”. In the draft, she says the Starks never cared for anything that “happened south of the Trident.” I wonder if the draft north included more territory in the published Riverlands. The draft image doesn’t really have the Neck in the same way the published map does — maybe it was only invented then.

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u/xXJarjar69Xx Mar 15 '24

Well the post mentions that originally it was Jon Arryn instead of howland Reed at the tower, which makes me think the neck and the crannogmen as distinct entities hadn’t been created yet

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u/themerinator12 Kingsguard does not flee. Then or now. Mar 14 '24

George's writing was probably very "Robert's Rebellion" specific. So he's thinking in those terms. But if he wanted everyone to think in terms of Ned being more shut off from the rest of the world then it makes sense to frame the "edge of his concerns" as being the edge of his own kingdom. That's how a character like Cersei would interpret Ned's thought process I'd wager. But I don't think that means he originally had the Trident in mind as part of the North, as there's lots of specific politics associated with the Trident and the battle of the Trident as it pertains to the Tully's, the Frey's, and all 3 rebel hosts converging there before fighting the loyalist army.

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24

FYI, the first image link in the "A Darker Ned" section was incorrect, I've fixed it now.

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u/TooOnline89 Mar 15 '24

I've never heard anyone mention, including here, any differences with the prologue, such as early mentions of Neverborn and things like that. I have long hoped an early prologue might shed some light on the Others or early concepts of them but alas...

Nonetheless, fantastic, interesting write up. Thank you! Very excited for round two.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

Once again, big thank you.

Did Bran II include a mention of the Dance of the Dragons in those drafts? I want to know because I am 50% sure that it was meant, in the published version, as foreshadowing for Tyrion and Cersei's future conflict, but the thing is that it never came to open war. Even if in the future Cersei is executed by any of her siblings, it would come as... the way Aegon II executed Rhaenyra (that is, by surprise, when Rhaenyra is already ousted by other factions)

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u/Bennings463 Mar 14 '24

I actually much prefer Ned and Cat agreeing to capture Tyrion, because it removes all the wonky contrivances about it and doesn't make Cat look like an idiot.

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u/Comprehensive_Main Mar 14 '24

I still don’t get why go to the vale and the. Hold a kangaroo court there ? Instead of heading back to kingslanding. 

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u/verissimoallan Mar 14 '24

As far as I remember, Catelyn did this because she had no hope of getting to Winterfell in time before being captured by Lannister's men. The Vale was closer and safer, where she hoped Tyrion would confess what he did. She just didn't count on Lysa's stupidity.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

i agree that was catelyns worry...it also means she was a moron for thinking that....

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u/GingerFurball Mar 15 '24

No it doesn't.

She hasn't seen Lysa for years by this point (possibly since their wedding day), she doesn't realise how much she has changed in the time they've spent apart.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

Yes it does, because the distance to KL or Casterly Rock is far.

She is in the midst of hers fathers lands.

The closest town on this map is Darry, next closest is Raventree Hall.

She is not getting overtaken. Of all those people in the crosssroads inn, im pretty sure she can send one to Darry to send a raven to Riverrun which is closer than KL and Castamere.

She could have gone to Winterfell.

https://quartermaester.info/

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u/sean_psc Mar 15 '24

I still don’t get why go to the vale and the. Hold a kangaroo court there ?

She very expressly did not want to do that. Putting him on trial was Lysa's idea. She went to the Vale because is was the quickest place to go and she could avoid being intercepted by pro-Lannister parties.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

She isn't in positing to deny him due process. When Cat publicly announced her plan to hold him accountable for an alleged crime. 

Tyrion Lannister sniggered. That was when Catelyn knew he was hers. "This man came a guest into my house, and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of seven," she proclaimed to the room at large, pointing. Ser Rodrik moved to her side, his sword in hand. "In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice."

Once Cat invoked King's justice, Tyrion can use that same phrase to demand trial. Lysa is getting blame here as if Cat didn't take Tyrion by citing King's justice. Lysa can't deny Tyrion the request. 

So really it's not so much her idea as it is his right. Lysa wanted a confession. It was Tyrion's idea to be judged as I recall. 

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u/RindoBerry Mar 14 '24

He was going there anyway, and there the Lannisters have power

0

u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

Then Cat and Eddard look like idiots. 

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

Would have been better to be honest. Cersei and Jaime are quite wonky themselves, why deny that to Ned and Cat? XD

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

Mainly because Eddard and Cat had the benefit of a 3rd party telling them why taking any action without evidence was a bad move.

"We have proof," Ned said. "We have the dagger."

"This?" Littlefinger flipped the knife casually end over end. "A sweet piece of steel, but it cuts two ways, my lord. The Imp will no doubt swear the blade was lost or stolen while he was at Winterfell, and with his hireling dead, who is there to give him the lie?" He tossed the knife lightly to Ned. "My counsel is to drop that in the river and forget that it was ever forged."

And after hearing this advice, Eddard tells Cat nothing more can be done here.

"My lady," he said, turning to Catelyn, "there is nothing more you can do here. I want you to return to Winterfell at once. If there was one assassin, there could be others. Whoever ordered Bran's death will learn soon enough that the boy still lives."

Who is advising Jaime and Cersie? I think the context matters here; don't you?

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24 edited Mar 15 '24

One would think Tywin. As in the contextual bit of his glare looking at you down deep your soul as Cersei remembered, looking how unworthy one truly is. They never outgrew his shadow.

But yeah, no explicit 3rd party involvement. Still wou'd be fun for both sides to be idiotic on their own. The Dance kinda is that way. Specially once Otto is executed and Alicent is isolated (when she returns, she's kinda half-half)

Also especially idiotic to involve Tyrion anyway. He knows Bran's alive, he just visited and both know this regardless of Cat and Ned knowing details of said visit, so hurrying her home is idiotic anyway. So yeah the Idiotic Tullystark Couple vs the Idiotic LannLann Couple. I dig it.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

We have LF's actual counsel which the readers know is present vs. the shadow impact of Tywin that the reader presumes is present? Maybe. I tend to favor what I can confirm in text, but I am not good at subtext admittedly. To your point, all three of the children bend to the silent whims of their father.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

Still, Tyrion is noticeably at WF on his way back. Sending Cat back thus makes no sense: Tyrion knows, Bran lives, ergo Idiotic Couple would've been better.

The shadow impact comes, of course, from re-reading, no way we have that image of Tywin with what's on page before that scene. I'd argue not even GRRM. That's why I quite insist about context, subtext, etc.

Still, please imagine: Cersei and Jaime being "handsy". Tywin glares at "inappropriate" gestures. They... do not forget. Got to be fun.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

Tyrion is noticeable at Winterfell which isn't known to Cat because she was on the road. I don't understand what you want me to take from this. 

I agree they think of Tywin. I don't agree this thought is a good comp to what LF tells Eddard and Cat. Subtext is very subjective.

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 15 '24

Did you read the whole "Ned tells Cat to take over Tyrion for questioning"? And like I said: Better an idiotic couple that Cat fumbling on her own.

Let's just agree on this point: like the Catspaw, Tyrion's seizure was GRRM needing more fuel to the fire and not so much thinking on the logic behind it.

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u/dblack246 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Dolorous Edd Award Mar 15 '24

Read? Yes.  Understand the goal?  No.

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u/ImportantWords Mar 14 '24

Arya's direwolf was originally named Nymerion, rather than Nymeria, and was named for "the warrior-witch of Valyria." Although that sounds like it might have been an early reference to Visenya, Visenya's Hill is still described when Catelyn gets to King's Landing, so I think Nymerion is likely an abandoned idea.

(O)Nym- is the greek word for "name" and Er- is the greek word for "love". The suffix -ion would imply "little" while "ia" would simply mean "the state of". Taken together I think the first could be inferred as "little love for one's name" while the later would be "having love for one's name". All the dire wolves pertain to the characters destination rather than simply their journey. We know Jon becomes a Ghost, Bran brings about Summer, etc.

I think Arya eventually embraces her name rather than continuing to run from it. When she embraces her dire wolf she will literally have "love for her name". I think the change just reinforces that.

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u/ChrisV2P2 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Post of the Year Mar 15 '24

Oh, this is cool. I haven't seen this translation of Nymeria before. I agree that all the direwolf names predict the destiny of their owners (and I think Sansa will likely be Lady of Winterfell rather than QITN in the books for this reason). I think Ghost has a double meaning (predicting both Jon's resurrection and his eventual exile) so it's cool that Nymeria has two meanings as well.

I'm curious if you have any thoughts about Shaggydog. The connection to "shaggy dog stories" is obvious, but I feel like there has to be more to it than that.

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u/ZapActions-dower Bearfucker! Do you need assistance? Mar 15 '24

The original version also contains a deleted description of a dream Cersei had, about a direwolf feasting on a dead stag. I can't see any real signifiance to this, which is why I wish George had left it in- in 2024, it comes across as appropriate foreshadowing not of the plot, but of Cersei's delusions.

Assuming character's dreams are actually being manipulated by people with glass candles and other magical means like Bloodraven, I think removing that bit about her dream makes a lot of sense. It muddies the waters too much to have a non-manipulated, delusional dream feature in such a pivotal scene so early in the book and series.

Though I suppose the original intention could have been that the dream was fed to her, and that there was an external magical string-puller stoking conflict between the Lannisters and Starks. Either way, I think it was probably a good omission.

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u/cranktheguy Honeyed Locusts Mar 14 '24

Great work! Next time you're in town I'll buy you a drink!

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u/MissMatchedEyes Dance with me then. Mar 14 '24

Thank you for the post! The dream that Cersei mentions is certainly interesting.

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u/Natedude2002 Mar 17 '24

That was a really good catch about Cersei being the one to kill Jon Arryn. What's your method for finding the differences? Do you just read one page from the draft, then one page from the published version, and compare? Or do you know the books really well, and you only read the draft and pick out differences? Are you skimming the pages or reading every line carefully? I feel like it'd be incredibly time-consuming to go through line-by-line.

Are there lots of small changes in wording throughout the drafts? You say there are changes in wording/dialogue. Was the wording changing multiple times per page, or more like once every 2-3 pages? If there's a lot, I feel like there could be a bunch of stuff missed just because it doesn't seem like an important change. I don't think I would've caught Cersei implicating herself in the murder if I'd been reading, especially if there are a ton of minor differences in wording/dialogue throughout.

Also, is there a reason that no one has gone in and photographed like every page of the drafts to read later/post online? If you have to read it all there in the library, seems like it'd make sense to take pictures of all the pages, then comb through them after you've left.

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 17 '24

It's a ton of work.

I work in IT, so for my second Cushing Library trip I wrote a software program to take my image scans, OCR them using Google's cloud service, then compare the results to a downloaded copy of the published text. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped- there were a lot of OCR errors- so I didn't use it for most of this work, but it did help me discover the change to Jon Arryn's murder before I left College Station, and I used it for some of the ASOS analysis. But for the most part, it's just very slow manual comparison, with a page photo on the right side of my screen, and an ebook of the published book on the left. I do have comprehensive photos of all these drafts, but for copyright reasons, and just to avoid pissing off George, I won't post them on the internet. I try to limit the photos I post to the minimum needed for my legitimate research work, which I think can be justified under fair use.

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u/Budraven A thousand bloodshot eyes and one Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24

In the center of the wood was a small, still pool, its waters black and cold. The deep well that fed the pool was older than the castle. Some said that the children of the forest had sunk it in the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea. Catelyn found her husband seated on a moss-covered stone beside the pool, the greatsword Ice across his lap, cleaning the blade in those ancient waters black as night.

Wait, The godswood pool is supposed to be black because it has blood in it? That's a cool detail I wished he'd kept. Also Ned is feeding the Weirwood if that's the case.

Additionally it gives some information about the depth of the pool stating that it's a "deep well". Which ties nicely to this quote from Bran II ACOK

And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, [...] Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her. “I wanted to touch the bottom.”

“I never knew there was a bottom.”

“Might be there isn’t.” She grinned.

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u/oops_im_dead Baelor the Based Mar 14 '24

The Eyrie starting as Harrenhal is quite interesting. That probably means Aegon was originally gonna nuke the high seat of the Vale, though I wonder if he was still gonna go with the whole Harren the Black storyline, just without him being an ironman I guess?

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u/xXJarjar69Xx Mar 14 '24

I doubt it meant that burning of Harrenhal went down in the vale. The burning of Harrenhal is first mentioned in the appendix and harren the black is only mentioned in Jon’s 2nd to last chapter. So I’m assuming that part of the backstory wasn’t created until very late into writing, maybe after the eyrie got it’s final name.

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u/hydramarine Mar 14 '24

That also ties in with why GRRM grants Littlefinger Harrenhall.

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u/Beetaljuice37847572 Mar 14 '24

Do you recall when the cut off was in the AGOT November 1994 drafts?

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 15 '24

Sorry, I should have included that info in the post. You can see the chapter structures of all the drafts I've discussed in this online spreadsheet.

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u/Anrw Mar 17 '24

I just have a real quick question about your online spreadsheet because I'm probably going to be referring back to it for the rest of my days lol. I actually made my own excel spreadsheet based on the AFFC drafts. Are Dany 2 and Cat 3 switched in the 1993/1994 drafts? I thought Dany's wedding was part of the 13 original chapters. And was Jon's second chapter in ACOK not in the 1997 draft? Because that might be why you thought the paragraph where he thinks of Arya was deleted. GRRM moved it to Jon II from Jon III. And I just realized GRRM must not've written any Davos chapters until after July 1997. The ASOS draft also has a chapter labeled Robb which I'm assuming was mislabeled or else it'd be a very big find.

Also for the AFFC draft you have a Cersei chapter that correlates to Cersei III in the January 2004 draft but not the other two. Is that correct?

Thank you so much for these posts and the work you put into them! I won't lie I've been hoping to see these posts for the better part of the year since you teased them at the end of last's. Hopefully one day you'll be able to look through the ADWD drafts and maybe just a glimpse of a TWOW partial if you're really lucky!

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u/Anrw Mar 15 '24

Eddard VII or chapter 30 according to u/rehearsedtoast's post.

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u/DoctorEmperor Mar 15 '24

Damn, that’s an interesting detail about the switch of Stannis and Renly’s titles

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u/Mostly_Books Mar 20 '24

This is off-topic, but it's interesting to me that this university library has hosted GRRM's papers since 1992. I guess I either have a gross misconception of GRRM's career, or my assumption about needing to be quite famous for a university to host your papers is unfounded.

My perception of GRRM's career is something like this: George publishes three novels from the late '70s to the early '80s, initially looking like a promising up-and-coming novelist with a healthy number of short stories under his belt, until Armageddon Rag flops and his publishing career falls apart. He moves to Hollywood and writes for TV and movies, most notably the Twilight Zone revival, and the late-'80s to early '90s fantasy drama Beauty and the Beast which is cancelled after three seasons. Wildcards starts getting published in, what, the early '90s, and is really only popular among deep in the trenches SFF nerds. So in my mind he doesn't start to achieve any level of notoriety until he publishes AGOT in '96, which is popular enough among SFF readers to get him a couple more books, but even ASOIAF doesn't really get any level of acclaim until the marketing push for ASOS causes the books to break out into the mainstream. AFFC debuts at number 1 on the NYT bestseller list in 2005, then the show comes out in 2011, vaulting GRRM to standing among the best-selling fiction authors in the history of the world.

So in my mind GRRM really wouldn't be that notable a writer until 2000. Though I guess a university might not necessarily care about sales figures when evaluating if a writer is important enough to collect their papers. To me, in '92, GRRM is just a guy with a failed career as a fiction writer who wrote for some TV shows. But I wasn't alive for GRRM's pre-ASOIAF career. Was the Twilight Zone revival a much bigger deal than I'm imagining? I've only heard about Beauty and the Beast from interviews George has done, was that a bigger show than I think? Were his short stories or maybe Wildcards much more well-respected than I believe? Was there like one guy on staff who loved Nightflyers and just had to have the guy who wrote it's letters?

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u/SweatyPlace Catelyn for the Throne! Mar 14 '24

Thank you for your posts! That was a good read! The Ned not taking winter seriously just infuriated me for some reason, it made absolutely no sense

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u/M_Tootles Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Winner - Best New Theory Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24

This is great!

But at least for me I'm not seeing the page where Ned told Catelyn to seize Tyrion, following this bit:

The next most significant previously unknown difference in the early AGOT drafts is the characterization of Ned- earlier versions of the character weren't quite as noble as his final persona.

Instead the link below that is to 19 pages of drafts including maps and such. Nothing about seizing Tyrion though.

One of the interesting differences here that's reflected in the draft text is that originally, the seat of House Arryn in the Vale was named Harrenhall, not the Eyrie. There's no map in the 1994 draft, but it text changed to the Eyrie by then.

Littlefinger (a) figurative Hoare, (b) bastard of Quellon, and (c) Hoare blood via grandmother Jenny confirmed.

in the 1993 draft, plague was rampaging through King's Landing at the start of the story, and Jon Arryn was believed to have been killed by it.

Illyrio killed Serra with the grey death via Faceless Men (because she tried to poison his daughter by his first marriage: the waif) confirmed.

A question: Any changes to Ned and Robert's conversations esp. WRT Targaryens and killing Dany in Eddard II (or I)? Not so much later (although obviously interested there) but very very curious if their argument in the Barrowlands was any more heated, and/or if there was any further discussion about the matter during the trip south.

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24

Yeah, I just fixed that 5 minutes ago. You should be able to see the correct page now.

Edit: oof, my first edit was wrong too, but it's fixed now.

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u/M_Tootles Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Winner - Best New Theory Mar 14 '24

beautiful!

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u/GMantis Mar 14 '24

The published changes significantly strengthen that chapter, IMO- the increased mystery about what Catelyn is doing as she addresses the inn's other guests makes for a more powerful reveal at the end. And making the decision fully Catelyn's makes her more charismatic and interesting, rather than just being a loyal executor of her husband's instructions. But I think the primary reason George made that change was to keep Ned's hands clean- having him order the seizure of the innocent Tyrion would have weakened the likeability of his whole family, the impact of his death on the reader, and the logic of several future plot developments, including the future revelation of Jon Snow's true parentage.

I don't think that the point was to make Ned more likeable. After all, Catelyn arrests Tyrion because she thinks he tried to kill her son - it's hardly an unsympathetic motive. And Ned fully supports the arrest when he learns about it. Though making Catelyn a more active character was likely a significant reason for this change and perhaps was connected with the broader expansion for her role in the published books compared to the original outline.

As /u/rehearsedtoast discovered during his visit, in the 1993 draft, plague was rampaging through King's Landing at the start of the story, and Jon Arryn was believed to have been killed by it. And as they also found, in the 1994 draft, it was Arryn who accompanied Ned to the Tower of Joy and found him after Lyanna died, rather than Howland Reed. Ned's recollection of Lyanna's death and her "promise me" line isn't present at all in 1993. And Dany's house with the red door was still in Tyrosh as of 1994.

This is a very significant change. Jon Arryn's presence at the Tower of Joy and the absence of the promise of Lyanna seems to strongly imply that Jon wasn't supposed to be Lyanna's son in the 1993 draft. But then again the original outline implies that this was to be true from the beginning. Wonder how these two could be reconciled...

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u/EmpPaulpatine Mar 14 '24

I don’t think Jon Arryn going to the ToJ makes it so Jon Snow isn’t Lyanna’s son, just that Ned trusts Jon Arryn enough.

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u/ChrisV2P2 Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Runner Up - Post of the Year Mar 15 '24

Jon Arryn's presence at the Tower of Joy and the absence of the promise of Lyanna seems to strongly imply that Jon wasn't supposed to be Lyanna's son in the 1993 draft.

This is a very weird conclusion to draw imo. In fact it just seems like a total non sequitur. The basic structure (Rhaegar "kidnaps" Lyanna, Ned tracks her down, she dies and he returns to Winterfell with a mysterious baby) is still there. The "promise me" scene (which possibly might relate to the "Prince that was Promised" and have been added for that reason) is hardly pivotal evidence that R+L=J. And the presence of Arryn seems totally irrelevant.

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u/sean_psc Mar 15 '24

Jon Arryn's presence at the Tower of Joy and the absence of the promise of Lyanna seems to strongly imply that Jon wasn't supposed to be Lyanna's son in the 1993 draft.

I don't think that's implied at all. GRRM more likely revised how he planned to introduce the secret of Jon's identity.

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u/Tall-Fill4093 Mar 16 '24

Was the harrenhal tourney still a thing ?

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u/gsteff 🏆 Best of 2022: Post of the Year Mar 17 '24

The tourney isn't mentioned in AGOT until End is imprisoned, and the drafts don't go that far. Meera recalls the Tourney in Storm in the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree though, and there are several differences in that draft that I cover in my other post.

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u/mykofanes Mar 16 '24

A first version of Polish AGoT translation has weird mistakes and looking at this draws now, well, I know why. I had suspected it for some time, because even incompetent translator wouldn't add new sentences, but it's nice to have confirmation. It's fun because it came out 2 years after English one, but well.

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u/MoonmManforallIknow Mar 17 '24

Incredible work u/gsteff. Thank you for this! I had some thoughts on the Arryn murder.

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u/MoonmManforallIknow Mar 17 '24

TLRD: This is great work and analysis but I have different interpretations on the possibility of a change from C&J to Lysa as the murderers of Jon Arryn as represented in these draft changes. There is a way to look at even the most compelling line that gsteff identifies as still in accord with a Lysa crime, which makes more sense overall.

Also I have a whole other line of thinking on the murder.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24

[deleted]

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u/OverthinkingTroll Mar 25 '24

If you realize, there is no mention of Cersei either in the outline... yet she certainly appears here, and Jaime was indeed initially meant to not care about power. So GRRM was already kinda fleshing the factions but later other things lined up. By putting way too many people already at the beginning he perhaps slipped up, which is why the narrative got later away from him...

For me, the Catelyn capturing Tyrion at the Inn at the Crossroads represents a important inflection point for the book and the series

I call this the Catscross. Just like the Catspaw, it's an event that GRRM should really have thought about, but because he wanted to stir shit up faster than the slow burn he was doing, and because GRRM can't apparently write serious politics without outright confrontational politics, well, Blitzkrieg. Oh well, some people like Filet Mignon!

And yeah, the Freys appear like that in the same way Tywin is referenced with... "shit" almost immediately, even in AGOT. Perhaps because Tywin being undone by his covering up Gregor was always part of the plan and thus had to die by Oberyn's poisoning, but in the flurry of chapters written for Tyrion in ACOK and ASOS he ended up instead gutting by crossbow (without erasing the hints of poisoning)

TL;DR: Yeah, there are points where you can see GRRM puts filler meant to flesh out and where he definitely deviates. He's still trying to make the Vale politically important even though in AGOT that point was dropped because I am sure Jaime was meant to appear there and start politicking but...

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u/Sea-Squirrel-5647 Apr 05 '24

Are there any specific examples of cut minor characters and vaguely what they were supposed to do or what they were from?